


thank the gods these walls can't talk

by charleybradburies



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cousin Incest, F/M, Half-Sibling Incest, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, POV Arya Stark, Parallels, Protective Siblings, Scheming, Season/Series 07, Secret Relationship, Short One Shot, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 20:10:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18350861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: There are lots of secrets at Winterfell,  Arya finds. Some of them are more surprising than others.Note: the other ships are just mentions. Jonsa is the only depicted pairing, aside from Baelish being Baelish.





	thank the gods these walls can't talk

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly OOC but I really wanted to write a version of this where Arya is unexpectedly supportive of the Jon/Sansa dynamic, so I did. I do hope y'all like it though! Haven't decided what more I'll write in this particular storyline but let me know if there's something you'd like to see! Please comment and kudos! ~~Also, it's written almost totally on mobile so it's probably bad and I'm sorry but I'm not with my computer for the time being and wanted to share anyway.~~

“Aye, Melisandre resurrected me. Then Sansa brought me back to life,” Jon says, and Arya believes him. “Just as you do,” he adds, but the doubt digs a pit in her stomach before she knows what it means. It's not even that she thinks the words dishonest, just...it's so… _different_. 

Then again, the relationship Jon had with Sansa had always been different than his with Arya, just as all the relationships in their family. Misunderstanding, disagreement, tension, all that, Arya had expected to see when she returned. And it isn't that she doesn't see those things, but...it's the way they _feel_ that puts her on edge, like she only knows her siblings individually, but not her family, even though she has to learn who they are now as individuals, too. They've all been through so much, so it makes sense that they'd be different than they were, just like she is, no matter how they might seem to try to return to a semblance of their old selves. It was difficult, of course, but Arya, at least, made her best attempts - both to find Arya Underfoot again and to adapt to what things were new that Lady Arya Stark could not change. 

Those things were many, though. They filled the space between the walls and walked the halls and thrived on taking from Winterfell's lungs. They were an unspoken, unfamiliar tenderness, a fear of the unknown, a need to escape both what was and what was no longer. They were the lords Sansa insisted they needed that neither Jon nor Arya wished to keep around, and the deaths they didn't have the time to grieve.

Even so, if Arya could be Nan and Nym and Cat, she could create a version of the little girl she'd stopped imagining would get a chance to be a woman. Couldn't she?

The woman Arya is gets a chance to be more than the girl she was imagined, though. She gets to spar, train, and go on hunts, and talk with Jon when he's free, without reproach - and Sansa even sews her outfits that incorporate breeches instead of expecting her to be truly womanly, even as Sansa compliments her appearance and excitedly braids her hair whenever given permission. She even shares her own soaps and perfumes, all lemon and rose scented. 

That's the first thing that makes her question the nature of the difference. Finding the scent on Jon's cloak hadn't seemed so strange, but after she notices it the first time, it's suddenly everywhere. It clings to his armor, his room, even the furs on his bed, and at first she assumes he hasn't actually noticed, but then one evening in the crypts he notices it on _her_ , and that...that's too much: the question “is that Sansa’s perfume?”, punctuated with a small smile. “It is. It's nice, isn't it?” Arya replies easily enough, able to trust he's not noticed her discomfort, as slight as it is. 

The two were close, to be sure, and the shared experiences made that almost inevitable, but Jon and even Sansa made clear efforts to be close to Arya, too, so she worked to convince herself there was no jealousy, even if she did occasionally note it. They both deserved people to cling to, who wanted to be clung to, people to love. She couldn't begrudge them their clinging to each other, could she? 

Perhaps she can, she thinks some days, like when she's dared Jon to spar with Brienne rather than with her. She catches the expressions on the faces of some serving girls and the memory of the forge at Harrenhal hits her - and then, for barely a moment, she reads that same desire in Sansa from where she stands watching. 

It surprises her, of course, not least because he is their brother but because Arya began watching in the belief that she would see Sansa plotting with her shadow from the Vale, plotting Jon's demise and Gods knew what more. But no, the tension she's seen between them was not of a jealous sister and her bastard king. Arya wasn't sure exactly what it _was_ , though. 

Yet, in her uncertainty, there are times she almost likes it, like when men like Baelish - primarily Baelish himself - stand a bit too close to Sansa, or look a bit too long, or gaze a bit too low on her frame, and something flares inside of Jon, something like the part of him that nearly killed Ramsay with his fists. Brienne, ever intending to uphold honor, once compares him to their uncle Brandon, riding south to challenge Prince Rhaegar to come out and die for plucking the flower that Lyanna was, and yet when one of the lordlings who've made an offer for Sansa's hand goes up against Jon in the yard, Arya sees Robert's rage instead - though it wears their father's face.

Sansa's devotion - and so much else - shows itself as it did for their mother, Arya thinks. Not always well-placed, but it is well-intentioned, even when Arya disagrees with the method, even when they all disagree. Even when it sounds like she's protecting people who have hurt them and intend to do so again. Their mother released the Kingslayer, after all, and even now, one of House Stark's most loyal supporters cringes when they call him that. 

“He cannot be _all_ bad,” Sansa defends with a gesture towards Brienne, when they discuss the summons from Cersei, ignoring for a moment the one from Dragonstone. It's the way Sansa looks Jon straight in the eye, gentle and knowing, that makes him shrug and agree, and Arya protests their agreement, in good part for protest's own sake. She recalls Sansa speaking on how she's learned from Cersei, and wonders if she should do better to advise her sister where it comes to secrecy.

They almost seem not to care, or perhaps they don't realize how they appear to someone who is, she hurts to think, an outsider. Their almost-casual touches, their affectionate looks...if she and Baelish weren't both discomfited by the behavior Arya would think she imagined the strangeness about it, the difference in the ways Jon regards her and regards Sansa. 

_But they are._

“Your brother has become...quite attached to you, my lady,” Baelish says one night in Sansa's chambers while Arya's listening from outside. The pause that Sansa takes speeds up Arya's heart on its own. She didn't know how to reply. How could she? She looked at him across the training yard like a girl at a potential lover, and if Baelish _saw_ how Arya _saw_...

“Of course he's attached. He's my _brother._ ” Sansa pushes the word out of her mouth with untold force, like she'd never considered him anything else, not even half-brother, only ever brother.

“He does not look at you like a brother, Sansa, no more than I did your mother.”

“Do not speak to me of my mother, Petyr,” Sansa growls, and suddenly there's a noise from down the corridor. _Ghost, sensing a disturbance in the woman he so often guarded._ Arya scurries back to her own room just in time to not be caught when Jon follows the wolf out of his chambers and towards Sansa's.

She stays up that night, sitting by her door, cleaning Needle, reading, restless. In the dead of night she hears fires crackling, and has to wonder if she only imagines the light sighs that could accompany lovemaking. (The noises come from Sansa's chambers; Arya cannot twist her mind enough to think of it as _fucking_.)

It's not yet dawn when the door next opens, and aside from the slightest creaking she only hears Jon's voice: enough of a whisper that the distance between them keeps her from making out the words, but clearly enough that she knows it's his.

What she _doesn't_ know is what to do. So for a few days, she does nothing about the matter. Well, _almost_ nothing. She redirects her attention, mainly, diverting her energy towards a plan of attack against Littlefinger. He plotted against Jon in particular, and Arya could not let it stand. She was no Sansa, though - Arya was all sharp edges. _Almost_ all. She was not entirely, as Sansa has taken to reminding her. She can be kind and clever, and in some certain lights, she's even pretty. _There was no strange lighting when Hot Pie said it_ , she tries not to recall, for if she thinks too long on it she gets jealous again. Perhaps it's partly hurt - the only man she can recall wanting is long dead, after all. _So is her sister's lover, in a way, and those before him._

She cannot quite see them as her siblings anymore, when their particular affections seem to show. She takes to giving what she hopes seem like looks of warning, when eyes like Baelish's are upon them as well as hers. 

If she can keep her own secrets, surely she can keep theirs, too, can't she?


End file.
